Peachy Keen spent the evening talking art (and drinking a little wine) in the Nashville studio of artist Amelia Briggs. We discuss the gendered psychology of the found imagery she uses from vintage comics and children's coloring books and how she subverts narrative in her formal process, which is split between object making and painting.

Briggs talks about the subtler role that feminist content plays in her work since she's moved away from the figure as a subject, and the relationship between her materials and her viewers. While the work can be seductive on the surface, we get "deep" into some childhood memories that may inform a more sinister reading of her "Inflatables" series.

Born in Tennessee and raised in Georgia, contemporary artist Vivian Liddell interviews women on art & the South. Bringing together women of all sorts to talk about their inspirations and definitions of art, and how these individual opinions reflect our changing region.

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Tommye McClure Scanlin on the relationship between her paintings and her tapestries:

I’m not trying to replicate this painting… but I’m trying to be inspired by it… or informed in some ways about the kinds of things that I saw when I made the painting. I’ve done several—I think it’s four pieces now, this is either the 4thor the 5th—where the background is essentially white, even though it’s not really white. It’s—you know—natural color and light gray and bleached white and thin threads and thick threads. But one of the things that one of my tapestry teachers pointed out is that if a weaver wants to place a shape in a field of white, the weaver has to make the field of white. You can’t—like a painter could paint a leaf on a white canvas and there would be the leaf—well I’m kind of getting a similar effect except I’m having to make the background as I’m making the positive.

They had invested all of their savings in becoming farmers…They had gotten a load of, I think they call them guilts… from some farmer…One of those pigs were sick and so it introduced …dysentery into all the pigs and they had to all be slaughtered on the same day …Basically it devastated my family. And so I was really interested in that narrative of my father and my uncle as young people having to slaughter 100 pigs or whatever all in the same day.

And that they often referred to that story as the saddest day. And so, we went to the farm to really kind of reenact that and that was just sort of the narrative I wanted to reenact. I wasn’t really sure what was gonna happen because I knew that no matter what you do— this performance for the camera— no matter how much you prepare, that you’re always at the mercy of the moment.

And I was using my twin lens Mamiya camera— which you don’t look straight forward. You actually look down into the camera. And so I wasn’t actually facing this narrative —my family— straight on. We were in the landscape of the farm and I’m looking through this square viewfinder straight down. The landscape in a way became the stage. And as they were moving in and out of the frame they were coming on and off stage. And It became really this theatrical reenactment or attempt to reenact the saddest day.

Sanborn: Like I said, I love Medieval art. And I love the iconography. I love that in that period of art …there’s no words to describe evil. How do you describe something that’s evil or negative? There’s no words, but there are pictures. And so, the artists of that time made their demons out of—like there are these weird conglomerations—of like pigs, bats and like weird creatures that they had like deemed evil. Right? And so that’s how they portrayed the dark side of things. There’s always happy. There’s always sad. There’s evil. There’s good. There’s temptation. There’s like peace and like wholeness… and I love that they showed that. Cause I’ve found that no matter what narrative or whatever situation I’ve found myself in there’s always good. There’s always bad. And they exist together…

So, the demons in this embroidery are acting out the wedding rituals. She’s getting her nails done. She’s getting her hair done. And down here, this is the demon wedding. So this is the culmination of their day…which is happening at the same time as my day.

Liddell:So there’s the flip—it’s like the yin-yang of weddings.

Sanborn:Yeah, yeah. So here’s this happy wedding that was happening… here’s the garden party. These are my friends. And then here’s the demon wedding that’s happening.

There was something Dr. Napoleon Wells—he is a professor/psychologist over at Columbia College in South Carolina—there was something he said. He was like in charge of facilitating my artist talk when I was in South Carolina and he said, “African-American women, black women, are the best to tell the American story.” Why? Because we are the ones who are the furthest on these fringes, on these edges. And so, It made me begin to think about… his why. We’re observers, you know, the ones who are … kind of at the edges and including our children. Right? And so, you very rarely hear our stories. You very rarely hear our information. And yet we’re the ones in spaces of service. … His understanding or his sharing of that— I was like, I’m African-American. So why am I a best story teller and why am I a good story teller? And what makes my narrative important? And why is my narrative just as American as a white male?

Our society tells us that it’s not. I’m hyphenated. I’m hyphenated in how I move here, in my space. And so, if mine is just as American with or without the African-American— what does that look like and what does that mean? Which is why I’m seeking out spirituality, because I don’t always know where my work comes from. I don’t always know where these ideas are coming from. But I do like to move on them.

I’ve deleted the app. I’ve like told myself I’m not allowed to go on it. It just makes me sad. …

I’ve found that I see other people’s works sneaking into mine and I see mine sneaking into others that follow me too much lately. And I’m wanting to kind of be more secretive and under wraps at least until I have enough that I feel like I’m ready to show, or I have the opportunity to show a bunch of work. And then it’s unleashed and it’s gonna wow everyone and be awesome…

But it’s weird. I think I look at things differently. I measure up myself differently and my own work differently. I think about the product instead of the process a lot more. Because I’m just seeing these images; I’m seeing so many images. ... And I’m like “Oh this is good” and “I like this painting”… But I don’t think about what it is that gives me the subtle joys. Why I love painting is surprising myself and making little jokes in my head and having fun with kind of what turns up. And Instead when I’m like “Oh my painting looks like this” or “it needs to be this”— I get too focused on the end result. And I think that that’s a product of looking at too much right now, but not in person…

I could just feel my heart jump out of my chest. … I didn’t like speaking in front of a group when I was a kid. … I didn’t like writing reports. And I didn’t like history. You know, having to go back and study all those people. I was like who wants to remember “1492 somebody sailed the ocean blue”—you know, all those type things. It was not until I could relate the history to me that I really started developing my passion.

It’s like, when I watched movies about the Alamo as a child, I never knew that any people who were African Americans served in the Texas Revolution until I was contacted by somebody from Texas to say that, you know your ancestor was killed by Santa Anna and inherited 2040 acres of land and we need you to verify this. And I was like verify this?! I don’t know anything about this! And so, I started reading through all the wills—because Richard Allen had a will, and all of his children had wills. And I had copies of them. So, I read through my great-great-great grandmother’s will, and she said the property in Texas is to be sold for the education of my grandchildren. That was the thing that they needed. The stories are out there, and nobody knows about them. And I’m just like, well, I can tell the story orally and I can draw the pictures and let people know. I guess that’s my new passion in life.